Sight Words

Most of these words are more regular than they look

Take said. The s spells its usual sound and the d spells its usual sound; only the ai is doing something strange. Take have. The h, a and v are all ordinary, and the silent e on the end is the oddity, sitting there because English words do not end in v. Have your child find the regular part first, and the surprising part stands out on its own.

This matters because memorizing whole shapes runs out of room. As the stack grows, words with similar outlines start colliding: was read as saw, then as them, of as for. Mapping sounds has no such ceiling, because every word learned also reinforces letters and teams your child will meet in a thousand other words that were never on anybody's list.

A six-minute routine that ends inside a book

Work on five or six words at a time, six to eight minutes a day, five days a week. The routine ends by reading those words inside real sentences the same day, and that step is not decorative. A word known only on a card is not yet a sight word. The card is where mapping happens; connected reading is where the speed is built.

1. Say the word and put it into a plain sentence: "Said. She said hello."
2. Your child says the word back, then counts its sounds on their fingers. Said has three.
3. Write the word out and ask which part is the surprise. Your child marks it with a dot or a box over the ai.
4. Your child says each sound while pointing at the letters, then reads the whole word straight through.
5. Your child writes the word from memory, twice, saying the sounds aloud while writing them.
6. Read three sentences containing the word, from a decodable book or from whatever you are reading together. This step is not optional.

Marking only the part that misbehaves

Most irregular words are irregular in exactly one place. In come and some, the o is doing the work of a short u. In of, the f says the sound v usually makes. In they, the ey spells long a. In been, the ee is short rather than long. Map the sounds your child already owns, then put a dot over the single letter or team that surprised you.

Naming the surprise out loud is what makes it stay, so ask for it back later: "Which part was the tricky bit?" A child who can answer that has stored the word by its spelling rather than by its silhouette. A child who cannot has memorized a picture, and that word will come back needing to be taught again within a month or so.

Cards are the mapping; books are the speed

Index cards and a highlighter do the whole job: the word in pencil, the surprising letters highlighted, the card somewhere your child walks past. Sticky notes on the refrigerator work as well, with the advantage of being read a dozen times a day without anyone calling it a lesson. Neither one builds speed, though, which is the part parents most often expect cards to deliver.

Speed comes from connected text, books written so your child can decode nearly everything on the page while the taught words come round often enough to become automatic. Faith Schooling's three hundred Decodable Readers are built for that, fifty per grade from Kindergarten through Grade 5. Cards without books produce children who read cards, which is a skill nobody needs after Grade 1.

Secure inside a book, or secure only on the card

The word has landed when your child reads it in a book they have never seen, with no pause and no glance up at you; when it is still there three weeks later with no practice in between; and when they can still tell you which part was the tricky one. That last check is the one most parents skip, and it predicts best whether a word will stay put.

The card-only reader gives themselves away by being flawless on the stack and then halting at the same word two lines into a book. That word was learned as a shape and never mapped. Watch also for guessing at words with a similar outline, for reading the first letter and inventing the rest, and for the same handful of words being retaught every week. All three lead back to the sounds.

A smaller batch, and a realistic pace

Cut the batch to three words rather than six, and add reading rather than repetitions. If your child cannot separate the ordinary sounds in a short word like sat, sight words are not the right work yet at all, and the time belongs in letter sounds and blending. A stall is never answered by more passes through the same stack of cards.

Programs disagree about how many words a child should know by a given point, so judge by books rather than by counts, and treat five or six new words a week as a workable pace. For an older child still reading common words by their shape, Foundations to Fluency is arranged by pattern rather than by grade, so you can start at the pattern that is actually missing.

First, your child should already…

This skill builds directly on:

• Letter Sounds — master this first.

What your child is learning

Sight-word practice builds automatic recognition for words that appear often. Some are fully decodable; others need careful attention to the unexpected part.

Signs your child is ready

• Recognizes letters quickly
• Can read simple decodable words
• Begins to reread familiar text

Practice this skill

Worksheets and decodable practice for Sight Words are in the library.

• Kindergarten — Sight Words 118 worksheets
• Grade 2 — Sight Words 20 worksheets
• Grade 1 — Word Games & Puzzles 216 worksheets
• Grade 3 — Word Games & Puzzles 144 worksheets
• Grade 4 — Word Games & Puzzles 144 worksheets
• Grade 5 — Word Games & Puzzles 144 worksheets

Every set opens its first three worksheets to everyone; the rest are included with All Access.

How to know it’s mastered

The child reads the target words quickly in isolation and in sentences.